Merging
by Shippygirl
Summary: Based on incorrect synopsis of The Forge preview. Archer gets someone else's katra. AT'P.


Codes: A,T'P PG-13  
Constructive feedback welcome. Mean-spirited feedback will be ignored.

WARNING: This is based on the _incorrect_ spoilers from Trektoday that said T'Pol gave Archer a mindmeld in the trailer for The Forge. So, in this story T'Pol can perform mindmelds. This bares NO resemblance to The Forge.

Author's note: I wrote this fic. when I should have been reading my History book. I told myself, I'll give it an hour and write something short. Instead I continued writing throughout the morning and into the early afternoon. References blended in the story from Star Trek 3 and TAS episode Yesteryear.

The heat was still getting to him. Even under the shade of the tent Arev generously lent them the tent to pass the heat of the day under. Archer dabbed the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. He dropped his hand back into his lap, sighing as even that much exertion made him sweat more.

The handkerchief, embroidered with a cursive initials HA was his father's. He took it with him on every away mission as a sort of good luck charm. Sweat and brownish-red sand covered its crisp white fabric.

T'Pol pulled back the flap of the tent and entered, bringing with her a blast of heat. The sand covered her skin and clothing like it did him. But her skin did not visibly perspire.

"Arev directed me to a source of water." She said depositing her backpack on the tent floor. She opened it up and brought out 4 full water pouches. "There is more. We can refill when we leave at nightfall."

She lifted one into his hands. "Drink. You need to regain your strength."

Archer eagerly drank from the pouch tilting his head back. A drop of a water trailed down his chin making a path through the sand down his neck to slide underneath his tan shirt. T'Pol watched it intently. Her pupils dilated and her breathing increased. When the drop disappeared, she blinked. Her brows knitted in confusion at her strange emotions.

Archer sealed the water pouch dropping it down onto the tent floor. He wiped the water off of his mouth with the back of his right hand creating a circular patch of clean skin.

T'Pol raised her left brow at the slightly amusing sight.

Archer saw her eyebrow rise and asked with a slight smile, "What did I do?"

"Your face is covered in sand." She deadpanned.

"So is yours."

"I can help you remove it."

Now it was Archer's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"If you want to." Was the response he managed.

T'Pol picked up the handkerchief on his lap and the water pouch beside him. She drenched it in water, washing it white again. She folded the handkerchief and brought it up to Archer's forehead slowly making her way to his temple. Refolding the cloth she ran it along his jaw and under his mouth.

Her eyes fixed on his lips then his eyes. For a moment she forgot herself and her bondmate, remembering feelings she buried long ago. Her eyes only locked his for a moment before she looked back to the handkerchief.

Archer swallowed and grabbed her hand taking it away from his face. Her gaze was too intense for him to take.

"Thank you T'Pol. I think I can finish myself."

His eyes looked on her with sadness remembering the feelings he dismissed as being a breach of protocol. Feelings that still thrived with him despite his efforts to move on with Erika.

T'Pol turned away and lay down on the other side of the tent.

Archer sighed reclining on the floor. He closed his eyes trying to catch a few hours of sleep.

She insisted on gathering the water alone. And he let her do it. The scream of a desert creature alerted him and Arev to the scuffle in the distant rocks. Arev ran faster than Archer reaching the rocks before him.

T'Pol had put up a good fight, but the dragon-like creature had her cornered in the hollow where the stream flowed. Deep gashes ran across her stomach.

Arev crept up behind the creature and jumped on its back. The creature hissed and reared up trying to throw Arev off of him. Arev's hand found the juncture of the animal's neck and shoulder and applied pressure. The animal fell after a few more seconds of struggling.

Archer ran over to T'Pol. "T'Pol!" Her eyes were closed and her body limp.

Arev looked over Archer's shoulder at T'Pol's body. "We need to take her back to my tent. I have provisions that may help her."

Arev pushed past Archer and lifted T'pol's body easily. Archer lost sight of them at times as he struggled to keep up with Arev's fast pace. Arev was right. Humans weren't meant for the higher gravity and heat of Vulcan.

Arev deposited T'Pol on the floor of his tent. Archer arrived at the tent entrance a few minutes later.

"Keep pressure on this wound. I will combine these herbs over the heat of the fire." Archer pushed down on the cloth covering T'Pol's wound. The blood soaked the cloth through in seconds.

T'Pol's eyes flew open, and she looked up at Archer. Her right hand flew up to his face. Archer tried to back away and push her arm from his face.

"T'Pol? T'Pol!"

Her eyes pleaded with him. "Please." Her other arm shot up and delivered a neck pinch. After he landed beside her, her right hand found the points on his face. She whispered to him words he would never hear but still remember.

Arev came back inside the tent. The hysteria of the lematya poison may have caused her to attack Archer he surmised. He checked Archer and found him unconscious but otherwise fine. He returned to T'Pol, and began treating the wounds caused by the creature's talons. Once he had the bleeding stopped, he remained in the tent watching her condition.

She came to him in his sleep. He saw her sitting on a cliff overlooking a desert valley. Rich copper colored sand covered everything in sight. Her eyes were closed and her hands rested on the flowing robes of deep blue and silver.

Her lids opened revealing piercing green eyes. "I am sorry. It was necessary to do this."

"To do what?" he asked stepping closer to her.

"I felt my body dying. I transferred my katra, my soul, to you."

"Are you telling me that you are in my mind with me? That this isn't a dream."

"This is a dream, and it is also my reality. I exist inside of you, but apart from you."

"If you die…" he shivered at the thought of her dead.

"My katra will live on in you until you deliver me to Mt. Seleya where my katra will be transferred to the hall where my ancestor's katra's rest."

"What if you live?"

"Then you must take my body with you to Mt. Seleya."

T'Pol blinked her eyes for a moment then opened them. Archer was gone. She knew she would see him again if the need arose. She watched from the back of his mind as he awoke and began to explain his dream to Arev. They packed up the camp that night, and left for Mt. Seleya.

The shuttlecraft was too far away. Enterprise was in orbit, but their communicators were non-operational at this range. So he and Arev had jury-rigged a palette to drag T'Pol's body behind them. She was in a deep healing trance that hadn't broken over the past day.

If Archer had a few tools he might be able to boost the range of the communicators. Archer frowned, what tools? And when did he learn how to boost communicator range? He sighed. It was another thought that didn't seem to be his own.

Arev stopped and looked through the dim gray light before dawn at the mountains in the distance.

"We are three nights walk from Mt. Seleya."

As each hour passed, Archer felt less like himself and more like a twisted combination of him and T'Pol. He remembered learning to wield a lirpa from a tall man with pointed ears he called father. He remembered his father Henry pointing to Pleiades in the night sky and saying one-day humans will go there. The sound of a Vulcan harp mingled with the sound of his mother singing. He couldn't remember if his father died in a bed in his family's house or while on a classified mission for the Vulcan High Command.

His voice changed and became monotone, betraying less emotion. His movements, gestures, and walk became more measured as parts of T'Pol blended in with him.

"You are afraid." T'Pol said. Archer opened his eyes to see her sitting before him in a garden. Serenity and peace wafted off of her. Her Vulcan robe was a creamy white this time.

He knew this place. It was his, no, her home. As he looked around at the familiar yet alien place, a breeze rustled through the crimson leaves of the Indukah tree behind T'Pol. The temperature cooled by thirty degrees in a matter of seconds. T'Pol's eyes smiled at him as the garden around them transformed. Roses grew up in between the desert grasses. Vines climbed the trunk of the Indukah tree blossoming delicate morning glory flowers. Tiger lilies sprouted up around a fountain made of volcanic rock. The sight awed him, but somehow didn't surprise him. Maybe he affected her reality as much as she affected his.

T'Pol looked at him with a reassurance in her eyes. The reassurance echoed in the back of his mind and spread onto his face in a half-smile.

"Why are you afraid?"

"I feel like we are merging. I fear I may loose myself in the process."

T'Pol's eyebrows knitted. Seeing his own mannerism on her face caused Archer to raise his right eyebrow.

"A human has never carried a Vulcan katra. I do not know what consequences, if any, might arise. "

"It is illogical for me to feel fear, but I still do."

"You are wrong Jonathan. It is logical because you are human."

He blinked in shock when she called him by his first name. He shrugged it off quickly. They were sharing one body, no need to keep up formalities.

"We will arrive at Mt. Seleya tomorrow Jonathan. The priests there practice traditions that predate the time of Surak. They are the protectors of thousands of Vulcan katras. If there is a way to separate us, they will know it."

T'Pol watched as an emerald green butterfly flew by. It looked exactly like the one she caught by the lake as a child. She followed its flight until it landed on a pink rose. She looked back at Jonathan when she realized the memory was not her own, but he was already gone.

She stood up walking over to the rose bushes. Leaning over she inhaled the fragrance, memories washed over her of playing in a garden while mother pruned her roses. A dachshund named Rowdy jumped and barked at her and she giggled and laughed at him. The memory didn't disturb her, or the emotions that came with it.

When she was inside her own mind, her newly released emotions could be erratic and overwhelm her. Here inside Jonathan's mind, his experience with emotions had become a part of her. She had found temporary respite from her emotional turmoil inside of him. Sadly she realized returning to her body would mean returning to her struggles with emotions.

T'Pol stepped away from the flower and walked back to the center of the garden. She sat down and watched Jonathan look up at the stars of her home planet. Ne'rian, he whispered. "Yes." She whispered even though he probably would not hear her. That was the name of the Pleiades on Vulcan.

The mountains opened up to reveal a cliff jutting out high over the valley below. A structure towered over the cliff made of the same rust colored dirt that stretched out as far as the eye could see in this place.

Figures hooded in white robes came out of the structure and down the mountain path to meet them. Their shadowed faces took one look at Archer then T'Pol's body still deep in trance. Then the figures turned to Arev. They removed their hoods, and both bowed their heads crowned with silver hair down to him.

Arev quickly told them what had happened and which ceremony needed to be done.

"Come with us Great One. We need to prepare."

The priests separated Archer from T'Pol as they tended to her slowly healing wounds. Two priests dressed him in a heavy white robe and escorted him out onto the cliff overlooking the valley. A platform with steps leading to it rose up on the cliff before him. Two rock slabs jutted up from the platform between them stood a priestess adorned in a ceremonial robe and a headdress. Fire pits blazed on either side of the platform attended by Vulcans dressed in the same red and white fabric as the priestess, but the clothing design made them look like ancient warriors. Priests stood stoically against a rock wall behind the platform.

The priests on either side of Archer guided him to the slab on the left and lay him down. Minutes passed and the mid-day heat seeped through his robe and nearly suffocated him. Sweat matted hair to his forehead.

Feet scraping against rock alerted him to the stretcher being carried in by the priests and followed by a long line of hooded figures. A wall of people surrounded the cliff and the platform on all sides as the stretcher was lowered and deposited a hooded figure on the slab by Archer.

The ceremony began. The high priestess recited words in Vulcan. Archer listened to them understanding the meaning of the ancient dialect. The priestess's aged fingers found several points on his face. She turned her head towards the hooded figure of T'Pol touching her face in the same points. The priestess' head flew back as she searched for and found T'Pol's katra buried deep in Archer's mind. The priests around her lent her their telepathic support.

Archer felt something leave him. He grieved its absence as he descended into darkness.

His first glimpse of her was of an errant strand of hair fluttering in the hot breeze outside of the confines of her white hooded robe. She stood near the only window of the small chamber they had assigned her inside gazing out onto the desert below.

He walked up beside her and looked at her, then out to the harsh vista she contemplated.

"The priests told me you would be ready to leave tomorrow. But, I wanted to ask you myself. "

T'Pol looked up at him but did not speak.

"T'Pol, do you think you will be ready to go?"

"Jonathan?" Her voice whispered.

"Yes." He inwardly smiled at her recognition.

"Enterprise?"

"Yes. The shuttle will be coming to take you to Enterprise."

"Home." She whispered.

Archer smiled. "I'm taking you home."


End file.
